Hey, hey, hey, welcome to the Renaissance English History podcast, my friends, the original

Tudor history podcast telling stories of Tudor England since 2009.

I am Heather, and as always, I am delighted that you are here with me.

Today, we're going to talk about a Tudor obsession with true crime.

If you thought that our modern interest with true crime podcasts and Netflix documentaries

was something new, let me introduce you to the 16th century, where scandal sold just

as well in song form.

In Tudor, England, murder was entertainment, morality play, and best-selling media all

rolled into one true crime, my friend, was big business. So we will talk about that. Before we do,

though, just a quick heads up, if you haven't joined the Anne Boleyn scavenger hunt yet, like, what even are you doing with your May?

It's completely free. It's filled with daily clues. I mean, you can do it one day at a time or you can do it all at once. It's up to you.

It's a scavenger hunt that is just filled with Tudor Nerd Joy following Anne's life from her early life through to the scaffold.

You can jump in any time up until May 19th at Englandcast.com slash Anne Boleyn Scavenger.

There's puzzles, you can learn things, and fall in love with Anne Boleyn all over again as we remember her death this month in 1536.

All right, my friend, let us get into it.

So, like we said, true crime, it's a big deal.

Pamphlets flew off the presses faster than you could say public hanging,

complete with blood-soaked woodcuts and salacious headlines. There were broadside ballads, basically the early modern version

of a viral tweet, pinned up on alehouse walls, and sung loudly in marketplaces to jaunty tunes that

made even the most gruesome killings sound bizarrely festive.

It wasn't about accuracy, it was about spectacle.

And nothing drew a crowd quite like a woman who had committed murder.

...